No, no, not me. Although it’s tempting to publish the stuff I’ve got saved up, and to keep writing lots more about my experiences over the last couple days (joy!), I’m not the kind of person to break NDA’s.

Lucky for us, (or for those of you not in the beta), Gary Gannon over at Gax has no such moral compass. Yay Gary! Someone sent him a beta key, and he had a lot to say about Warhammer on the latest Massively Online Gamer podcast episode 98.8. You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes from that page, or you can listen to the episode directly from your browswer. If you want to get excited about WAR, definitely take a listen! Hell, you should be listening to every episode of MOG anyway, but lots of WAR talk you can’t hear anywhere else yet is a huge bonus. I’m already in the beta; I can play whenever I want, and I was getting excited listening to him talk about WAR.

I think my enthusiasm stems from hearing someone who was, until recently, a WAR outsider, enjoying the game so much. I’m never sure that my personal level of excitement and anticipation for WAR is really based on the game, as much as it’s based on, well, just new MMO anticipation. And since I can’t talk about it, it’s like I’m living inside my head with WAR. So much of what Gary said, though, made me say “Yeah! Right!”, and I’m thinking that if more people react like Gary reacted, then maybe I’ve been right (in my own head) for the past couple months, and Mythic really has produced a kickass MMO.

I really can’t wait until the general public gets their hands on the game. First of all, it’ll be cool just to have a real, living, permanent server, with a permanent character. Beta characters get wiped too often to get attached, or to really get to know the people you’re playing with. Second, I’m really looking forward to people discovering for the first time the features that I’ve really grown to appreciate.

It might be too early to say this, but I suspect in a couple months, we’re going to talk about how Mythic completely owned Funcom this year. It’s not friggin’ easy to make a great MMO, but I think Mythic is on the right track. We’ll see how many of the rest of you agree with me next month!

The game has changed a tremendous amount since I joined the closed beta last winter. I had a difficult time testing back then. Part of it was due to the way they structure their beta tests (more after the NDA drops), and part of it was due to a definite lack of gloss (Jacobs and Barnett have both been stating publically that a lot of graphics upgrades have been added on the last few beta passes).

I’d venture to say that it may still not be immediately appealing to everyone graphically, but I think there’s a reason for that. Mythic is forced to be extremely conscientious about the load equipment graphics will cause when 100 enemies crash together, and I think they have to design the whole environment with less flash than Conan or LoTRO, for example. However, if people can get past the lack of flashiness, the gameplay beneath is pretty meaty.

I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but Gary and gang are fairly bandwagon dependent. It wasn’t long ago they were saying Vanguard was the best potential PvP game and that this whole WAR thing was vapor ware. Then it was EVE, err wait, it was Pirates of the Burning Seas.

I guess I’ll make it clear. Fuck MOG, they are a bunch of loony toons that no one should listen to. Sorry for the harsh words, but I think someone needs to keep those retards in check.

Haha, I think Gary called Age of Conan a possible sleeper hit at one point, they referred to it on their last podcast, so I guess you’re right, I should take it with a grain of salt. Still, the things he was enjoying are the things I’ve seen in beta, so I kinda feel like since he agrees with me, he must be really smart 🙂

And I like listening to MOG! They might be loony, but I enjoy their opinions, and their looniness. Their videocast from Iceland at the CCP fanfest was great stuff.

My main beef is with the fact that they’ve grown on the backs of their audience, only to become absolutely worthless with the power they’ve gained. Its OK to root for a game, but when the hosts are consistently rooting for the wrong game without any real facts… sigh… sigh. Maybe this cast is different, but I’m still not listening 😛